The gravel popped under my feet. The cold, dense air carried the smell of the river into me. I had left it all behind five years ago and now it only served to remind me of the fish I left behind. Above stood the towering, overhanging rock. It still rendered me awe-inspired as it had …...

It’s been more than four years since Lefty Kreh, the great godfather of American fly fishing, passed. It’s time for me to share a couple ‘Fishing with Lefty’ stories. Both are as true as my memory will allow. About 30 years ago the Backcountry Flyfishing Association was having Lefty come for a weekend seminar. At …...

Roderick Haig-Brown is one of fly fishing literature’s touchstone figures, and his work has become requisite reading for those who wish to partake of the pure essence of the artform. For decades I have been particularly drawn to his book “FISHERMAN’S WINTER” — the narrative of his pioneering 1951 odyssey that took him and his...

“Many go fishing all their lives without knowing that it is not the fish they are after.” –Henry David Thoreau I’m still not sure some of my friends, colleagues and even family members begin to understand why I’m so enamored with fly fishing. “Oh, you went fishing today, did you have a good time?” they …...

I had the morning “off” one day during my first season guiding at Alaska’s Goodnews River Lodge. When not fishing, staff members were expected to work around camp performing tackle maintenance, cutting wood, doing carpentry, whatever needed doing. I was off because two new guests were coming in on a private charter. They would...

Enjoy Fast, Frenzied Action During a Bug Hatch Also called willow flies or shad flies, mayflies spend most of their lives underwater. As nymphs, also called naiads when in their aquatic form, the insects look somewhat like elongated or flattened crickets or maybe a cross between a cricket and a shrimp. When they emerge from …...

IF MY FIRST TROUT is merely an imagined dream, then the first trout I actually remember is still as fresh as it was when the leader finally broke and the fish fell out of my small world and back into its own. You’d think it would have been Dad who was there with me that …...